Meet the Team
by zeilfanaat
Summary: Meet John and his team when they meet their new team member.


**Meet the Team**

By zeilfanaat

**Category:** Drama/Humor

**Ratings:** G or K

**Warning:** none

**Disclaimer:** Thunderbirds is not mine. They belong to Gerry Anderson and co. Any characters that are not from the series, are mine. (I highly doubt you'll see any movie-verse characters in here, since I've never seen the movie). Please ask if you want to borrow them.

**Summary:** Meet John and his team when they meet their new team-member.

**A/N:**Thanks to **white rose01** for beta-reading!This occurs a couple of months after "John meets…"

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Five people were sitting in the briefing room, waiting for their boss to enter. To the left of the head was Janet Williams, the team's commander and biologist. At thirty-one, she had quite some experience under her belt already, knew how to pilot just about any shuttle they had at NASA or elsewhere on the world where she had been. She liked to chat but once she was on a mission, she would be completely professional. 

Tom de Vries, a twenty-nine-year-old Dutchman who had lived in the US for eleven years now. He was an expert-engineer and amateur physicist who had been on about eight missions with Janet before the powers that be had decided to just put them on the same team as they seemed to end up on missions together anyway. He was the secondary co-pilot.

Kimi Li, twenty-six-year-old computer-expert from Japan. Born in the US, moved back to Japan when he was three, and only three years ago came back to work for NASA.

Renato Andez, aged twenty-four was Janet's primary co-pilot, and the team's chemist. Despite being relatively young, he already had a couple of successful missions behind him, and was not about to change that pattern. Slightly on the wild side, he had the same focus as Janet. Maybe that's why they got along so well.

John Tracy, at twenty the youngest of the bunch, was the electronics and laser communication expert. Kimi and he could have the longest conversations about anything computer-related.

Now John's status of being the youngest of the team was about to be destroyed.

Bill Shepherd entered the room, and immediately everyone sat up. A young brown-haired woman followed him in.

"People, I want you to meet Nicole Evers. She'll be your sixth team-member. Some of you might already know her."

Janet smiled at the other woman as she stood up and shook her hand. "Hello Nicole. I'm Janet Williams; you might have seen me chasing Art Melchers from time to time. I'm the commander of this bunch. Allow me to introduce them to you."

She pointed at the chair on her left. "Tom de Vries, don't worry if you can't pronounce his surname correctly. I still can't, and I've been working with him for years now."

Tom nodded. "Welcome aboard Nicole. Finally, a real physicist. These guys here are relying on my amateur-skills way too much."

Nicole grinned. She had been working with Tom a couple of times since she started working here.

"Next is Renato Andez; also known as 'The Mad Chemist'. Opposite me is Kimi Li, and next to him is John Tracy."

John smiled, and Nicole returned it. After their first meeting, they had run into each other more often, either in the science lab or in the cafeteria whenever John was kicked out of his office again.

Once the introductions were over, Bill Shepherd spoke again. "Ms. Evers, please be seated, then we'll start the briefing."

Nicole sat down opposite Renato, next to John.

"You're all aware that your next mission will be in two weeks time. Janet, would you mind filling in Nicole as to what this mission entails."

"Sure. We'll be going to Station 12. It used to be manned, until we automated it. However, some time ago we received data that something seemed to be wrong with a couple of the receptors. Basically we're going there to let John here play with the receptors, and we'll do a general update of the systems. All in all, this mission should take us about a month. Getting there will take 4 days, we'll stay there for 22 days, and then we'll head back and get our pay packet. That's about it, right Bill?" Janet turned to look at her boss. He chuckled.

"Yes, though the timing of the pay packet could be a little off."

"Ah shoot! I thought we had fixed that. Kimi, you'd better get to work as soon as possible, otherwise they'll just be two months late again!" Janet exclaimed. Nicole grinned. She liked the older woman with her quick responses.

Bill cleared his throat. "OK, Kimi, John, were you able to get more specifics about the receptors-problem and the general status of the systems?"

Kimi nodded and leant forward.

"We believe a small meteorite has scratched the surface of the station, damaging the receptors in the process. It has most likely caused the sub-circuit to blow. We've drawn up a report with the specifics as to what we expect and what we'll need." Kimi handed Bill a small file. Bill quickly skimmed through it, while asking: "John, do you have anything to add?"

"One of the receptors seems to be completely fried, so we'll probably have to replace that one. As for the others, they seem to have encountered only minor damage, so I'm pretty sure we'll be able to fix those."

Bill nodded. "OK. Does anyone else have something to say about this mission? No? OK, we'll have our final briefing the day before launch. If something comes up before that, come to me immediately. Be prepared on the 29th people."

With that Bill Shepherd left the room. Renato stretched. "Guess we'll be celebrating New Year in space _again_ dear friends."

"Yup. Reno, your turn to bring the champagne." Tom grinned. Nicole watched confused as Renato paled slightly.

"No thanks, somehow champagne and space are a bad combination for my health."

"I did warn you, you know." Tom said with a smile.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, Nicole, ever been in space yet?"

Nicole shook her head. "No. Just the simulator."

"Cool. Don't worry about it. It's no big deal." Renato replied. Janet laughed.

"Hark who's talking! Mr. I'm-so-nervous-I-can't-eat, every time we have a new mission coming up!"

"Hey, what is it! Pick-on-your-best-co-pilot-day?"

"No, that is in four days." Tom provided. When all heads turned towards him, he exclaimed: "What? I checked the calendar!"

"Sure Tom. You just have to work on your credibility now. You just can't proclaim every three days that it's pick-on-Reno-day 'today'." Janet said, patting her dejected-looking friend on the shoulder. "Tell you what: let's have a get-together the evening of the 27th. You know, have a nice dinner, slouch in comfortable chairs and watch movies that are deadly for much needed brain cells."

"I'm in!" Renato yelled. Kimi and John looked up, having been discussing a flaw in a certain computer program. Janet repeated what she had said, used to the fact that the two men were sometimes too involved in their topic of interest to hear what the rest of the team was talking about.

"Sure, good idea."

"OK, that's a deal then."

The team began to walk out of the room to their respective labs or offices. John came to walk besides Nicole. "You're coming on the 27th too, right?"

Nicole smiled. "Yes, it sounds like fun. But where do I go?"

"Oh, one of us will pick you up. We'll first have to badger Tom into using his house anyway." John grinned. "Believe me, you don't want to go to Reno's apartment, Kimi's apartment is pretty much occupied with computers, and Janet has a husband and two kids. So when we have an evening like this, we either end up in Tom's place or my place. Tom's place is bigger, hence why we're going to talk him into using his living room."

Nicole nodded. "Sounds good. So, where's your office? It's not in the science department."

John grinned. "No, too much science going on. Anyway, I usually have lunch in my office as you know, and I have my own coffee pot. One we share among the team, so, if you feel like having good coffee instead of the sludge they serve at the canteen, I suggest you just pop by my office. Which is here by the way." The blond man gestured to the right, pointing to a door. He then showed Nicole where Janet, Reno and Kimi worked as she already knew where Tom's office was. They ended the 'tour' at Nicole's lab.

"OK, well, I guess I'd better get back to work." John said. Nicole nodded.

"Yes, me too."

"Oh, by the way, if you come to my office around 12:20, Kimi and Tom will have lunch here… and Janet and Reno will drop by and pick up a cup of coffee." He winked. Nicole grinned. "Got it… Thank you John."

"You're welcome." John smiled. Nicole left the room and headed for her own working spot. 'The team seems fun. The people are nice as far as I can tell, though I don't know what to make of Kimi and Renato yet. But it was a pleasant surprise that both John and Tom are on the team as well. I'm definitely looking forward to the 27th. Or the 29th. My goodness. My first real mission!'

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**The End**

A/N: This was actually the original "John meets..." but I didn't like it as such. So, I left it, wrote the 'new' "John meets..." and changed this one a bit so it made more sense. I hope you liked it.


End file.
